By Paula Mejia on November 15, 2012

Jim Jarmusch’s cult-acclaimed film work, heavily drenched with atmosphere and carefully crafting a milieu in the stead of a traditional plot, always retains a prevalent musician’s sensibility. Unsurprisingly, his musical collaboration with Dutch lute player and minimalist composer Jozef Van Wissem is as cerebral and dramatic as you’d expect. Loaded with dissonance and drones, the entrancing “Flowing Light of the Godhead,” in particular, exemplifies Jarmusch’s ability to create textured guitarlines billowing with white noise. Title track “Mystery of Heaven” washes over with an eerie tranquility as the listener passes as a transient into Jarmusch’s profound world, somewhere in the strange limbo between life and the inevitability of death. Capped with a chilling spoken-word piece featuring Tilda Swinton, looped guitars swoon and roar, creating an otherworldly score. Just five tracks, each piece from The Mystery of Heaven resonates the way a film score does—with grandiose, cinematic, room-shaking effect.